Beauty and the Beast
by Dellah Morte
Summary: A little something I wrote for the cell phone challenge in the VincentxTifa forum. Fluffy.


"Um, hi, sorry to bother you, but have you seen a really tall guy in leather and sunglasses? No? Are you sure? Okay, thanks… Hey, you! Have you seen a guy in leather and shades? Really tall, long black hair? No! I couldn't have _sworn_ he stormed off in this direction…!" Tifa whined to herself, as the last person she'd forcefully interrogated hurried away before she could ask more questions. This was why she hated the city. Too many people, and all of them were in a hurry—or pretending to be in a hurry—to get somewhere so that they didn't even have time to politely answer a question.

But some blonde girl nearby, smoking against the wall of a building, took pity on her, "Six feet, looked like a rock star, mumbling profanity about a cell phone?" she asked.

"Yeah!" said Tifa eagerly, turning towards her, "Did you see which way he went!"

The smoker raised her free hand and pointed, "He crossed the street down there and went south. I watched him. Is he your husband?"

Blushing, Tifa suddenly realized that that was what it must've looked like even back in the electronics store, because not only were Tifa and Vincent of opposite gender and had been arguing the entire visit, but Tifa was baby sitting Marlene today and leading the little girl along by the hand. Her married to Vincent, with a kid…

That was a mind blowing prospect that she'd give more thought to later, once she managed to smooth Vincent's ruffled feathers as much as he'd let her. Men and their fragile egos…

"No, he's not my husband." Tifa shook her head, "We're just friends…"

"Shame." The blonde smoker might have added more, but she only shrugged instead, giving Marlene a friendly smile.

"Anyway, thanks a lot. We'd better go before he gets away--!" Tifa waved to the girl who'd pointed them in the right direction and hurried farther down the sidewalk to the intersection, Marlene jogging along beside her without complaint, only to find that, of course, the light said DON'T WALK.

Huffing angrily, Tifa put her free hand up on her hip, as if an impatient posture would make the light hurry up and change. It didn't.

As far as shopping for cell phones went, it had certainty been an unusual experience. Vincent had mentioned, in passing, wanting to buy one a couple of times, and it was an excellent get-to-know-Vincent opportunity (more about that later), so she'd offered to help him out with it. Unfortunately, Vincent was at a huge disadvantage having missed twenty-eight years of technological advances, and guys don't really like having things explained to them, so…

You could guess how that might have turned out, as cell phones typically involved a lot of explaining even to people who were more modern. Vincent had been wearing a dubious expression from the get go, turning around an entire 360 degrees in the middle of the store, lowering his shades to look around the room, and saying,

"Why are there so many? What's the difference?"

Tifa let Marlene go play with the cell phone displays while she tried to explain, a salesperson giving them squirrel eyes as he waited for the opportune moment to waltz up and ask if he could help them. Tifa was loathe to let that happen; Vincent didn't like people who talked a lot and way too fast, and for the salesperson's own benefit, he needed to just stay safely behind that counter he was standing at. She tried to make it look like she, at least, knew exactly what she was doing.

"Well, they do all sorts of stuff…" Tifa said.

"Like calling people?" Vincent asked impatiently. He gave her a blank stare over the top of his sunglasses.

"Well, some of them get on the Internet—"

"—The Internet!---" Vincent interjected. Tifa just went on.

"—Download MP3s, take pictures, download ring tones, y'know lots of extra stuff."

"I didn't understand a word of what you just said." Said Vincent, who had once tried to get on the Internet and hadn't been able to make it past the Bellsouth homepage. It had been an accomplishment for him to actually figure out which little icon to click, "But it sounds ridiculous. You don't buy a cell phone to take pictures."

"Some people do. It's like buying a PlayStation 2 to watch DVDs."

Again with the staring over the sunglasses. Tifa changed to subject.

"Well, what do you want your cell phone to do?" she asked, thinking that would be an easier way to start.

"Call people." Said Vincent flatly. He walked away from her and went over to a display, looking up to read the advertisement on the wall. Tifa followed, but hung back a little, just in case.

"Can I help you, sir?"

Tifa's whole body stiffened and she turned quickly, shaking her head and mouthing, "No—No!" She hadn't noticed the salesperson sneaking up on them from behind and wished she'd paid more attention…

But it was too late. Vincent had taken off his sunglasses to read the advertisement, and he turned around to glare at the poor, teenaged salesperson, who jumped and averted his brown eyes from Vincent's red ones fairly quickly.

"No," Vincent snapped, putting his sunglasses back on and turning his back on the man. Tifa sent him and apologetic, nervous smile, and he quickly retreated back behind the counter.

_Damn it. I keep telling him to get contacts. And every time someone's scared of his eyes, he gets in a bad mood. It's like he LIKES being pissed off…_Tifa had seethed to herself.

"What's this mean? There's a limit to how many minutes you can talk on it!" Vincent demanded of Tifa, fixing his smoldering glare on her instead, and pointing to the poster on the wall.

_Not that you'll even use it enough to have to worry about it…_ Tifa shot back in her head, but aloud, she just said, "Yeah. That's how they keep track of how much you have to pay each month."

He looked at her as if the whole minutes thing was _her_ stupid idea, and then looked back at the poster, muttering, "And it's free on nights and weekends? What sense does that make? What happens if you talk _more_ than four hundred minutes?"

"You get mega fines." Tifa said.

He rolled his eyes and walked away from the display, "This is stupid." he complained. Tifa sighed, by this time way fed up with Vincent and his method of dealing with things he didn't get right away to make himself feel better about not getting them.

"Well, you know what, Vincent!" she demanded, "Why are we even here, then! Why don't I just go home! It seems like the only reason I'm here is so you can keep telling me how stupid and useless all of this is!" She stalked over to Marlene, passing Vincent without a backwards glance, "Come on, Marlene." She snapped, and then waited for him to call her back.

He did, "Wait, Tifa, I _need_ you---"

Her head snapped back around really quickly. Like, lightning fast.

"—for this." He added quickly, and then sighed, "…I don't know what I'm doing." He added again, in an even lamer voice.

Marlene watched them interestedly. Behind the counter, the salesperson tried not to laugh.

"Okay," Tifa relented, crossing her arms and trying to decide if she was more disappointed or annoyed with him, "Why don't you just pick one you think you like, and then I'll tell you about it."

He walked away from her towards the first display, nearest to the door, and slowly walked down the length of the shelves. Tifa sent the salesperson another apologetic look, and he nervously shrugged back at her.

Marlene had taken a sample phone off of the shelf and was holding it to her ear, having a pretend conversation out loud. Tifa didn't make her stop, but asked her to lower her voice, just in case Vincent got annoyed. He'd been fairly moody for the past few days, driving her to wonder just what the hell was wrong with her that she would be crushing on THIS particular guy, where there were plenty of other sane, normal, secure, totally human guys out there who'd kill for a chance to date her instead.

But then, Tifa had never really had a taste for normal men. She was starting to wonder if she was somehow psychologically addicted to drama or something weird like that.

"That one—" said Vincent suddenly, pointing to a bright green phone, "But I want it black."

Mistakenly, Tifa blurted out with surprise that, "Oh, that's the phone you can play that Final Fantasy game on!"

"What?" he demanded.

"Never mind." She said quickly, not really wanting to get into the mechanics of turn based games with someone as technologically challenged as Vincent was. He could somehow manage to change TV channels all by himself, and that was really about it. She remembered the time he'd wanted her to teach him how to use Limewire on his laptop so he could listen to music, and, well… it had taken up the better part of their day that Tifa had really thought they could have used to do something a little more… hands on.

"Okay, so what does this one do besides…Final …Fantasy… what IS that!"

"Don't worry about it—it's an extra feature." Tifa crossed the store and quickly tried to lay out the phone's more basic functions, "Okay, it has ring tones, the internet, games, and MP3s. MP3s are… y'know, music files."

He looked at her without an expression, and she tried not to sigh, lowering her voice. She wasn't even entirely sure Vincent actually realized that downloading music off of the Internet was illegal.

"Like Limewire." She said quietly.

"…I can put that on my phone, too?" he asked.

"You can put songs you've already downloaded on Limewire on your phone and listen to them whenever you want." Tifa explained, a little more thoroughly this time, "But don't tell people you got them from Limewire." She added.

"Why?"

"Cuz… Just don't, okay?" she said, and proceeded to explain everything else, while Vincent flipped open the green phone and stared at the buttons as if that might help him suddenly understand, "Ring tones are like, instead of the regular cell phone ringer, you can have your favorite song play to let you know someone's calling. And the Internet, well, you know what that is, and Final Fantasy is a video game."

"Like Atari?" he asked.

"Like Atari on _steroids_." Tifa corrected, "It's like the Jenova Crisis in 3D graphics and turn based commands."

He still didn't really get it, so she supposed his video game experience really _was_ limited to virtual ping-pong and Hangman. Not that hers was any broader that Mortal Combat in the arcade everyone in awhile, but at least she saw commercials about them on TV.

"Okay…" he said finally, "I think I get it. Calling is just like on a regular phone, right? You just push in the number and hit send?"

"Right." Tifa nodded, "But you can do all sorts of stuff with a cell phone as far as calling goes. You can have a list of contacts, so you don't have to keep dialing the same number over and over, and you can text message, which is like a super short email, like, if you only had to say "I'll be right there" or something else really short that would be a waste of time to call and say. And you can leave voice mails, which are like answering machines for a cell phone. Like, if the person you were calling had theirs turned off or something, they could turn it on later and play back your message and know you called."

"I need a drink." Vincent mumbled in a sort of hopeless tone of voice, rubbing his forehead.

"Don't worry," Tifa said, "You'll get used to it eventually. Just play around with it for awhile."

He sighed. Marlene came skipping back over, done with her pretend phone call, to see how much progress they had made.

"Did you find a cell phone you like yet, Vincent?" she asked, tugging on the sleeve of his leather jacket.

"I think so…" he said wearily, and then turned around to look for the poor salesman he had frightened earlier, "You can help us now. I want a black one like this."

Nodding as amicably as would be possible if, say, Lucifer had just suddenly appeared in the middle of your shift, the salesperson came back around the counter and checked the tag number of the cell phone and then retreated into the back to go find a black one.

It was sort of a long wait. They all fidgeted, and Marlene finally broke the silence and made it even more awkward, as only a young child could.

"Hey, Vincent, how come you always wear sunglasses? Are you pretending to be a movie star?"

Tifa cringed as she expected Vincent to come up with some sort of snappish, mean response, but he only turned towards Marlene and said, sarcastically, "The name's Bond…" he lowered his sunglasses a little and stared somberly at her, speaking in a deeper, movie star-like voice and raising only his right eyebrow"…James Bond."

This sent her into a fit of giggles that effectively distracted her, even though Tifa was sure that neither one of them actually knew who James Bond was. But at least he hadn't bitten the little girl's head off. She sighed and tapped a foot on the ground as they waited for the salesman to come back.

"We, uh… don't have black ones." The salesperson timidly emerged from the back of the store, "Is there another color you want?"

"No…" Vincent sighed, but only Tifa could hear him.

"Pink!" said Marlene.

"Um… no," Vincent replied, "That's a nice color… but how about red instead?"

The salesperson disappeared again and Tifa amused herself with the idea of Vincent carrying a pink cell phone. She snickered out loud and he stared at her, so she shook her head to tell him that it was nothing.

"No red, either!" the salesperson called from the storeroom, "We have silver… and pink, too." He added as an afterthought.

"Silver." Vincent snapped.

"I dunno, pink would be a good color for you." Tifa said, and received yet another over-the-top-of-the-sunglasses glare.

"Whatever. I just want to buy the thing and get out of here." He fumed.

Did Vincent really just "whatever" her? Tifa looked at him curiously. He'd been doing a lot of seemingly out of character things lately. Maybe it was finally his real personality coming out. You couldn't be an unexpressive statue forever, after all…

Or maybe he'd been hanging out with Cloud a little too much lately. Avalanche seemed to be taking turns pulling Vincent into their little groups. Vincent never asked to go anywhere with anyone, they always asked him, and he always said yes, even if he thought it was going to be "stupid". There was something in that, but Tifa wasn't quite sure what it was, just not wanting to be impolite or really wanting to hang out with his friends.

But lucky Tifa had the apartment right next door to him. Imagine her surprise when she'd knocked on her neighbor's doors one morning to introduce herself and a still groggy Vincent came to answer the door and said something like, "Whaddyawan?" After that, she'd never knocked on his door until after one o' clock, when he was more likely to be lucid. He still slept _a lot_…

"If you want me to, I'll program your phone book if you want, and put everybody's numbers in it." Tifa offered, while they waited.

He shrugged, which, in Vincent-speak (a very complicated language, by the way), meant yes.

The salesperson returned with a box and carefully handed it to Vincent, seeming relieved that he had put his sunglasses back on so he could look at them instead of those piercing red irises.

"Okay, so what plan did you want with it?" she salesperson asked.

"Excuse me?" Vincent asked shortly.

Tifa sighed for the umpteenth time. She had forgotten about that…

The salesperson pointed towards another wall poster and Vincent turned around to skim it, lowering his sunglasses a little.

"…You know what!" he demanded suddenly, and the poor salesperson jumped and shook his head.

"This is stupid. I can't just buy a stupid phone? Why do I have to worry about all of this extra stuff? This is _stupid_. Just forget it!"

And then he left, leaving Tifa and Marlene and the salesperson gaping after him.

"I am sooo sorry!" Tifa gushed in the salesperson's general direction, "He's, uh, technologically challenged. And easily frustrated. Um… sorry." She grabbed Marlene's hand, "C'mon, we'd better go…" and hurried out of the store after him, which had lead to the questioning of random people on the street, as Vincent could move very fast when he wanted to and had been nowhere in sight.

Marlene looked up at Tifa, since the light was taking so long to change, "Why's Vincent mad?" she asked.

"Because he's tired of not being able to quickly understand things that are everyday for normal people." Tifa explained.

"Why doesn't he?" Right now, Marlene looked just as confused as he had been. Marlene had never really been told Vincent's story.

"Um…" Tifa tried to think of a sort of innocent way to describe it, "He was asleep for the last twenty eight years."

"Like Sleeping Beauty?" the little girl asked naively.

"Um……... he's more like the Beast from Beauty and the Beast. You know, he was stuck in that old castle for so long, remember? Only he's not… always… a beast…" was she making sense? Apparently it was enough for Marlene, who got excited and squeezed Tifa's hand.

"So are you Belle, Tifa!" she demanded eagerly.

Sure. And Cloud was Gaston.

"Um—" but, thankfully, Tifa was spared from actually answering that question, though she hoped little kids like Marlene didn't understand the significance of blushing, which she was fairly sure she was doing. The light changed and Tifa distracted Marlene by hurrying her across the street.

Thank god Vincent didn't understand Disney, either. If Marlene brought it up again, he wouldn't understand what she was hinting at.

They finally found Vincent, in a considerably better mood, eyeing a black Mustang in front of a car dealership a little ways down the road.

"How hard is driving these days?" he asked.

"Easy," Tifa assured him, "You want to practice on my car?"

Another salesman was giving them the same kind of squirrel eyes as the one before him. Vincent glanced at him and then started walking away, "Maybe." He said to Tifa.

Marlene took her hand out of Tifa's and ran to Vincent instead, pushing back his sleeve to grab his hand and swing his arm as they walked. He obligingly put up with it.

"Hey, Vincent, have you ever seen Beauty and the Beast?"

_Oh, no._ Tifa bit her lip, willing the kid to just shut up.

"No," his answer came a little too quickly.

"Wait a minute!" Tifa blurted out, "You _have_!"

He didn't look behind him, "Well… Okay, so maybe I was flipping channels and the title caught my eye so I watched five minutes of it. That's all."

"You watched the whole thing!" Tifa accused.

"Did not." He argued back.

There was an accusatory silence, and then Marlene broke it, "Do you think Tifa's like Belle?" she wanted to know.

"I only watched five minutes. I didn't get the names." He mumbled, again, really quickly, and not turning around.

"You watched the _whole thing_ and you know it!" Tifa accused again.

"What? You want me to tell her yes!" Vincent demanded, finally turning around and taking off his sunglasses to stare at Tifa with the same critical air as she had been speaking with, "So what? Life's not like fairy tales. Would you really just magically fall in love with a beast? Would you? I doubt it." He let go of Marlene's hand and started walking past her, muttering something about buying his stupid cell phone instead of wasting his time comparing his life to a bedtime story.

"But I _don't_ think you're a beast, Vincent…" Tifa said quietly, as he passed her. She was ignored.

Marlene watched Vincent leave in confusion, and then looked at Tifa, "Well… I think you're _prettier_ than Belle is." She said matter-of-factly.

"Thanks, Marlene…" Tifa mumbled distractedly. She felt strangely disappointed and upset.

Marlene added, "And I think Vincent thinks so, too."

"No he doesn't." Tifa snapped, and took the little girl's hand, "Come on, we'd better catch up to him before he frightens that poor salesman again…"

The same blonde, who'd pointed them in the right direction before, though she wasn't smoking anymore, shook her head and said, "Verizon Wireless," as they passed.

"Thanks," Tifa returned sheepishly.

"Just get married." The girl said with a grin.

Tifa hesitated in front of the store, though, only looking through the window to see Vincent talking to the salesperson, apparently calmly. She didn't want to get on his nerves…

"Let's just wait outside, Marlene. He'll only get madder if we keep acting like he needs help." Tifa said carefully.

"Okay…" Marlene sighed. She leaned against the wall of the store and started humming, "Something There That Wasn't There Before" under her breath. When Vincent came out, he sent her a _poisonous_ glare when she wasn't looking.

He tossed the little silver cell phone at Tifa, and she caught it, looking at him curiously.

"You said you'd put numbers in it for me." He reminded her coolly.

"Oh, yeah!" As a gigantic hint, she put in her numbers first. There wasn't much talking after that, as Tifa was busy filling up Vincent's phone book, and he was looking through the instruction manual, the box under the same arm he held it with, Marlene holding his other hand because Tifa was using both for the cell phone; one to hold Vincent's, and one to hold hers to copy a couple of the numbers she didn't know off of the top of her head into it.

The blonde girl smirked again as they passed.

"Where are we going next?" Marlene wanted to know.

"Barret gets off work in ten minutes." Tifa said, after checking the clock on Vincent's cell phone, "So I guess we're taking you home, Marlene."

"Awwww…." Marlene pouted, "What are you guys gonna do after that?" she wanted to know, "Are you gonna go on a date!"

Tifa was really paying attention to copying those numbers into Vincent's cell phone and seemed not to have heard her.

"Oh, sure. We'll go ballroom dancing, and later, get attacked by a mob of angry villagers." Vincent muttered.

"So you did watch the whole movie." Tifa said.

"Shut up." Vincent snarled back, "You know, it's a lot more complicated in real life. You can kiss me all you want, but I'm not going to stop being a beast."

"Who said you were!" Tifa demanded.

"You did." Said Marlene.

"That was--- I was trying to help her understand why—Oh, never mind!" Tifa shoved Vincent's cell phone back at him, "Here. It's finished. Not like you'll ever actually call anyone on it anyway!"

He snatched it from her and put the phone in his pocket without looking in it, facing forward.

There was silence for a few minutes.

"You know, I think the only beast here is that beast of an attitude you've got." Tifa snapped.

He didn't answer.

"You could have at least said thank you!" she persisted.

"Thank you." He echoed tonelessly.

Marlene grinned and skipped alongside Vincent's long strides, "Vincent and Tifa, sittin' in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G! First comes love, then comes—"

"Marlene, please stop singing." Vincent said tightly. But Marlene was determined to finish her song. Tifa tried to keep the heat from her cheeks in case Vincent glanced at her.

"—Then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage!" she grinned and giggled like it was some big joke and then said, with wide, innocent eyes, "If you guys did have a baby, what would you name it?"

"We're not going to have a baby." Vincent said firmly.

Tifa blew her bangs out of her eyes and tried to ignore them both.

"Why not? You should get married!" Marlene said, still all sweet and innocent, "If you get married, can I be the flower girl? Stacey—" she spoke the name of Barret's girlfriend, "—said that if she and Barret get married I can be the flower girl at their wedding!"

"That's nice." Said Vincent.

Marlene pouted, "Don't you like Tifa, Vincent?"

Dammit. She couldn't _help_ but listen…

But Vincent opted not to answer, the big stupid jerk. Marlene sighed in agitation.

"I _know_ you like Tifa, Vincent. And Tifa likes you. Get married!"

"Things aren't quite that easy, Marlene." Vincent finally said, turning his gave skyward.

"Why not?" Marlene demanded with childlike tenacity.

"Because I'm the beast, remember?" he snapped.  
The rest of the walk to Barret's apartment was silent.

When they got there, Tifa let them in with the spare key Barret had given her and Marlene raced to her bedroom and Tifa and Vincent sat stiffly in the living room while they waited for Barret, who arrived almost right behind them, thank god; the silence had been killing Tifa. For some reason, she felt kind of like crying with frustration. Why'd he have to be so mean!

"Thanks for watchin' Marlene for me." Barret said, by way of a greeting, his dark eyes darting back and forth between them, not missing the way that Tifa sat on the couch and Vincent in the chair.

"No problem." Tifa tried to offer in a friendly tone, but it came out kind of strange. She avoided looking at Vincent, and he didn't look at her.

Barret rolled his eyes and went to see Marlene. It was a small apartment, so they could hear their voices even in the living room.

"Daddy, Tell Vincent and Tifa to get married!"

Vincent coughed, and Tifa stared at the black TV screen.

Barret laughed, from back in Marlene's room, "Baby, I can't just _tell_ them to get married. That's a decision they have to make on their own."

"But they like each other, don't they?" Marlene asked.

"Maybe. You don't know that for sure."

"Yes I do! It's so obvious!" she said, trying out one of Stacey's favorite phrases, and making Barret laugh, and even Vincent smiled a little bit.

"Well, maybe they do. But it's still _their_ decision." Said Barret, and then he switched the subject, "Did you have fun today?"

"Yeah. We got Vincent a cell phone…. Do you think Tifa's like Belle? Except prettier?"

If Tifa heard that girl say something like that _one more time_…she was going to scream.

"I think you need to start mindin' your _own_ business, girl." Barret advised, to Tifa's relief, and came back out into the living room a minute later.

"Anyways…" he said, "What're you two up to lately?"

"I got a cell phone." Said Vincent dully.

"And it was a fiasco, as usual." Tifa added, sending him a short glare.

"Well… at least you finally got it," Barret interjected, before an argument could start.

"And I apparently resemble a cartoon character." Vincent added angrily.

Barret sighed, "She's just a kid…"

"Oh, not Marlene's opinion. Tifa's." Vincent corrected him. Barret looked carefully from him to Tifa and didn't say anything.

Tifa had reached her limit. She jumped up from her seat at the couch and started shouting, "Okay, look! Marlene wanted to know why you didn't understand modern stuff, so I told her you'd been sleeping for a long time in the mansion and she said, "Like Sleeping Beauty" and I said, no, more like the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, because, if you want to know, that was my favorite Disney movie ever, and I didn't mean for you to find out and I didn't mean for your feelings to get hurt, okay! It was a really stupid comment and I never should have made it, I guess!" Vincent wasn't saying anything, so Tifa turned to Barret, "I'll see you later, Barret." She said, and then left the apartment, slamming the door behind her.

"I think you'd better go after her…" Barret suggested carefully.

Vincent sighed, "Why bother? I spent all this money on this stupid thing…" he pulled the cell phone out of his pocket, flipped it open, and stared blankly at the buttons.

"Uh…need some help?" Barret asked.

"No." Vincent snapped. He took off his sunglasses so he could see better, and, after a couple of minutes, managed to find the address book himself.

When Tifa passed the same building the blonde woman had been smoking against earlier on her way back to the apartment, she wasn't there this time. Tifa walked right past the building, crossed the street, and quickened her pace as she saw the apartment looming overhead.

Not that it'd really get her all that far from Vincent; he lived in the apartment right next door, and there were always constant reminders of his presence, like the rock music sometimes softly pounding near the living room wall, or bumping into him when she'd go to check her mail.

That jerk. She had decided that she _hated _him.

In the elevator, her cell phone rang. She didn't even _fantasize_ that it might be Vincent, whipping it out of her purse and snapping it open.

"Hello?" she asked, trying to answer in a civilized, non-bitchy tone of voice.

"Hey,"

His voice sounded deeper over the phone and she almost dropped it.

"You _called_ me!" she demanded.

"Why the hell do you think I bought the damn thing, Tifa?" he countered.

Silence.

"Listen…" he said slowly, carefully, and she leaned against the back wall of the elevator and crossed her arms as best she could as she held the cell phone against her ear.

"…You want to do something tonight?"

Tifa's cell phone slipped out of her fingers and clattered to the floor of the elevator.

She very quickly bent down to retrieve it, "Um… I mean… like… when... where… what …Why?"

He answered her questions in order, "I'll pick you up at eight… I don't know I haven't decided yet… and yes it's a date."

"_Eight!_" she wailed, "But that's in _two hours! _If you're taking me on a date I have to get new clothes and get my hair done and my nails and—"

"Um… no… you don't. Just show up in what you're already wearing—"

"No! Make it nine!"

She could hear the exasperation in his voice, "Fine. I'll be at your door at nine. But in that case you have to wear a dress."

"I hate you."  
"I bet I can hate you more."

"Can not."

"Can too."

"Oh, yeah? Well _I_—" Tifa struggled to come up with a better retort, "I—I bet you can't _like_ me more than I like you!"

"I love you."

"What!" Her heart was pounding and it had nothing to do with how fast she'd walked to get over to her apartment as quickly as she had. He had _not_ just said that. That big stupid jerk, he had NOT just said that…

"I—love—you." He repeated, slowly, "I have since Avalanche. So beat _that_."

"I…" she said breathlessly, "I'll see you at nine, Vincent."

"That's what I thought." He said smugly, and hung up on her.

Tifa stayed where she was, with the phone still pressed against her ear, her back against the elevator wall until she heard the little 'ding' that announced that the elevator had stopped on her floor, which in turn also served to snap her back into reality.

Vincent had just asked her on a date AND he'd said, "I love you." Twice.

Tifa didn't get out of the elevator, but rode it back down and hurried to her car, her cell phone still on and against her ear. She was calling Yuffie. She had to brag about it. And get some advice about what she should wear, after all, she only had three hours…


End file.
